The present invention generally relates to a printer system, and more particularly to a printer system which manages the sequence of print jobs of a plurality of documents on a queue for a printer shared by a group of host computers on a network.
In a network on which a group of host computers are connected, one of the host computers serves as a file server dedicated to storing a number of documents or print job files from the other host computers, and a printer, connected to the file server, is shared by the host computers on the network. The print job files, stored in a memory within the network, are waiting to be printed by the printer. Another term for placing a number of documents on a queue is print spooling.
In order to print the number of documents from the host computers, an operating system lines up the documents in a buffer. This buffer is called a queue. The operating system pulls the documents off the queue one at a time and transmits that document to the printer, so that each of the documents is printed by the printer.
The order in which a system executes print jobs on the queue depends on a print priority scheme being used. Most commonly, print jobs are executed in the same order that they were placed on the queue.
However, when it takes several minutes to print out a document from a certain host computer, the other host computers have to wait for the printing of the subsequent documents on the queue to be started. There is a problem in that the printing of the subsequent documents from the other host computers is not started unless the printer has completed the printing of that document.
In another case, an error of the printer may take place, and a print job of a certain document from one workstation is being held up during the error of the printer. Under this circumstance, the other host computers have to wait for several minutes for the printer to start the printing of the documents sent from those host computers because the printer is in a waiting condition unless the error of the printer is eliminated. In addition, the printer may malfunction in the course of the printing of a number of documents on the queue, and a print job for a certain document on the queue is stopped during the malfunction.
On the other hand, the file server on the network has a function to cancel the entry of a print job file from the queue. Generally, when any error on the printer occurs, a supervisor who manages the network resources can use such a function in order to speed up the printing of the subsequent print job files. However, the other users at the host computers cannot use the function mentioned above and do not deal with the print job files on the queue.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a novel and useful print priority determining apparatus in which the aforementioned problem is eliminated.
Another, more specific object of the present invention is to provide a print priority determining apparatus which allows a printer system to efficiently carry out print jobs for a group of host computers on a network, by determining a priority of each of print job files in accordance with predetermined schemes.
The above mentioned object of the present invention is realized by a print priority determining apparatus which includes a recognizing unit for reading a print condition of each of a plurality of print job files from a memory, a reading unit for reading a current setting parameter of a printer from the memory, a comparison unit for detecting whether the print condition read by the recognizing unit is in accordance with the setting parameter read by the reading unit, and a priority setting unit for determining a priority of each of the print job files in accordance with a result of the detection by the comparison unit.
According to the present invention, the priority of each of the print job files is determined and the sequence of print jobs being executed is arranged in a desired manner, rather than a first-in first-out sequence. The print priority determining apparatus enables the printer system to efficiently carry out print jobs for a group of host computers on the network without the need to await for several minutes an end of execution of a certain print job.